“Lay a finger on me, dear brother, and I’ll clam up and leave you forever in torturing doubt.”

“Is that what Netty said?”

“Not in so many words. But you know my methods, Watson. Apply them. Now, attend very carefully. Daddy took Mummy away from Dunstan Ramsay and married her. Dunstan Ramsay went right on visiting this house as Trusted Friend. If you read more widely and intelligently you would know the role that Trusted Friend plays in all these affairs. Cast your mind back six years, to that awful Christmas. A quarrel. Daddy sweeps out in a rage. Ramsay remains. We are sent upstairs. Later we see Ramsay leave Mummy’s bedroom, where she is in her nightie. We hear her call out, ‘You don’t love me.’ A few hours later, Mummy tries to kill herself. You remember all that blood, that you couldn’t keep your mouth shut about. Daddy isn’t around home nearly so much after that, but Ramsay keeps coming. The obvious—the only—conclusion is that Daddy discovered Ramsay was Mummy’s lover and couldn’t bear it.”

“Carol, you turd! You utter, vile, maggoty, stinking turd! How can you say that about Mother?”

“I don’t enjoy saying it, fathead. But Mummy was a very beautiful, attractive woman. Being rather in that line myself I understand the situation, and her feelings, as you never will. I know how passion drives people on. And I accept it. To know all is to forgive all.”

“You’ll never get me to believe it.”

“Don’t, then. I can’t help what you believe. But if you don’t believe that you certainly won’t believe what came of it.”

“What?”

“What’s the good of my telling you, if you don’t want to hear?”

“You’ve got to tell me. You can’t just tell me part. I’m a member of this family too, you know. Come on. If you don’t I’ll get hold of Father next time he’s home and tell him what you just said.”

“No you won’t. That is one thing you will never do. Admit yourself to be Ramsay’s son! Daddy would probably disinherit you. You’d have to go and live with Ramsay. You’d be branded as a bastard, a love-child, a merry begot—”

“Stop milking the dictionary, and tell me.”

“Okay. I am in a kindly mood, and I won’t torture you. Netty killed Mummy.”

I must have looked very queer, for Caroline dropped her Torquemada manner and went on.

“This is deduction, you understand, but deduction of a very superior kind. Consider: the orders were strict against Mummy getting a chill, so we must accept either that Mummy opened those windows herself or somebody else opened them, and the only person around who could have done it was Netty. If Mummy did it, she killed herself knowingly, and that would be suicide, and forgetting all that Netty so rightly calls Anglican guff are you ready to believe Mummy killed herself?”

“But why would Netty do it?”

“Love, dumb-bell. That tempest of passion of which you still know nothing. Netty loves Daddy. Netty has a very fierce, loyal nature. Mummy had deceived Daddy. Listen, do you know what she said to me, after we had left you hogging the wine? We talked a long time about Mummy, and she said, ‘Everything considered, I think your mother’s better out of it.’ ”